Arjuna watched the great tree breathe.
That was the only word for it. The trunk swelled and contracted in
slow, oceanic pulses, and with each pulse the branches moved. They
grew — not the way a normal tree grows, slow and secret, but visibly,
like rivers branching across a floodplain. Some climbed upward toward
the silver roots and the source-light, their bark shining pale gold.
Others dove downward into shadow, thickening as they went, their
wood turning the colour of storm clouds.
"Watch the buds," Krishna said.
Arjuna looked. At the tip of every branch, tiny green buds were
opening — hundreds at a time, thousands, an endless unfurling. And
each bud, as it opened, released something into the air. Not pollen.
Not petals. Something stranger.
One bud burst open and Arjuna smelled jasmine — the exact jasmine
from the palace gardens in Indraprastha, the scent that used to drift
through the window when Draupadi combed her hair. Another bud released
a sound: the low, sweet note of a veena playing at dusk. A third
scattered a shower of golden light that looked like coins tumbling
through water.
"Those are the sense-pleasures," Krishna explained. "Every sweet
thing the world offers — a beautiful sight, a favourite song, the
taste of ripe mango on a hot day — they are the buds of this tree.
The gunas feed the branches, and the branches flower into everything
you desire."
"But what are those?" Arjuna pointed downward.
Below the canopy, where the light thinned and the air grew heavy,
he could see new roots growing out of the branches themselves —
secondary roots, thin and pale as thread, reaching down like
fingers into a dark mist. Through the mist, he caught glimpses
of villages, cities, temples, markets. The human world.
The thread-roots found people. They wound around a merchant
counting silver. They coiled around a mother holding her child.
They wrapped gently around a scholar bent over his palm-leaf
manuscripts.
"Karma," Krishna said quietly. "Every action sends out a root.
Every root ties the soul a little tighter to the tree. The merchant
counts his silver and wants more. The scholar finishes one book and
reaches for the next. Even love — even good, true love — sends
roots into the world."
Arjuna felt something brush his ankle. He looked down. A thin,
pale root had wound itself around his foot, soft as silk, warm
as skin.
He understood. He was part of the tree too.
